Alcohol Consumption and Perceived Sexual Coercion: Effects of Gender and Personality Determinants

Abstract

Alcohol intoxication is a risk factor for being a perpetrator or victim of sexual coercion. Environmental factors (e.g., misperception of social cues), as well as dispositional factors (e.g., personality, gender), are believed to play an important role in linking alcohol consumption and sexual coercion. Sixty-three participants, chosen on the basis of being high or low on scales of hypermasculinity (men) or hyperfemininity (women), were randomly assigned to either an alcohol or nonalcohol condition. After viewing a video of an ambiguous heterosexual interaction, participants responded to questions assessing their accuracy of recall of cues from the interaction, positive bias in their recall of cues, and expectancies regarding 1) the future sexual behavior of the characters in the video and 2) their own conduct if they were in a similar situation. Alcohol was negatively related to accuracy in recall and positively related to the belief that the characters in the video would engage in sexual intercourse (both volitionally and forced). Gender was also important as women were less accurate in recalling cues and intoxicated women evinced a positive bias for cue recall. Traits of hypermasculinity and hyperfemininity were not robust predictors. Hypermasculine men did, however, endorse a substantially higher likelihood that they would have sexual intercourse if in a similar situation. Findings are placed in the context of potential preventive interventions.

Keywords:

• alcohol intoxication
• sexual coercion
• hypermasculinity
• hyperfemininity
• personality
• cue perception

Notes

¹Risk factors are often noted in the literature, without an adequate explanation of their dimensions (linear, nonlinear), its “demands,” the critical necessary conditions (endogenous as well as exogenous; micro to macro levels) which are necessary for it to operate (begin, continue, become anchored and integrate, change as de facto realities change, cease, etc.) or not to and whether its underpinnings are theory-driven, empirically-based, individual and/or systemic stake holder-bound, based upon “principles of faith” or other sources. Editor's note.

²The reader is referred to Hills criteria for causation which were developed in order to help assist researchers and clinicians determine if risk factors were causes of a particular disease or outcomes or merely associated (Hill, 1965). Editor's note.

³The degrees of freedom in the numerator is 5 rather than 6 as one of the dependent variables in men (i.e., ratings of whether one would force the female character to have sex if in a similar situation) had no variability (M = 1.0; SD = .00).